Behind the Artefact: Gothic Reliquary Paint Holder

Behind the Artefact is an independent educational exhibition. 
It is not affiliated with or by any brands or vendors mentioned in the post. All historical claims are sourced and labelled.

Explore the 3D model

About

This is a hand-finished outer sleeve designed to fit around a dropper bottle.

It began as a practical test: could a standard utilitarian container be given a fitted architectural skin without losing the bottle’s visibility or day-to-day function? The result is a small object built around precision, where the bottle remains visible through the central window and the sleeve carries the visual weight.

This was also a test of an AI-assisted workflow alongside parametric CAD and hands-on modelling.

Brainstormed the design with ChatGPT Images 2.0.

Verified History

The design is historically grounded in broad Gothic architectural vocabulary, not in a direct copy of a particular cathedral, building, region, workshop, or medieval object. Gothic architecture in Europe is characterised in part by pointed arches and tracery, and spans from the mid-12th century to the 16th century. SOURCE

The pointed outer frame is therefore a legitimate Gothic reference. The paired small three-lobed forms read as trefoil-inspired cusping: architectural sources use trefoil for a foil with three lobes and describe cusps and foils in Gothic window tracery. SOURCE (DOI reference).

The upper enclosed feature is safely described as a lobed roundel. Its exact lobe count cannot be verified from the supplied render, so it is deliberately not labelled a quatrefoil or cinquefoil.

The central stem and side shafts borrow the strong vertical emphasis of Gothic openings. They are decorative product elements, not documented historical mullions, structural supports, or a reconstruction of a particular window.

The Design Process

The first stage was parametric. We used OpenSCAD to establish the outer sleeve as a controllable fitting canvas, with parameters for length, width, height, bevel options, and the window opening.

Measurements were provided to ChatGPT. As we were trialling different bottle heights and shapes, parameters were adjustable